


Burlesque ~ Saudade

by Puniyo



Series: Parallel Universes [4]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Based on Moulin Rouge, Experimental writing, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Some Humor, Unresolved Sexual Tension, alternative universe, cabaret, courtesans and prostitution, crude language, plot within plot, this is a world of sin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-26 21:22:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17753717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Puniyo/pseuds/Puniyo
Summary: Javier, a disowned writer and poet, finds his pen with the power of love (and lust) when he meets Yuzuru, the highest courtesan in Saudade.OR.Javier and Yuzuru à la Moulin Rouge.





	1. The Quartet of the Revolution (Part 1)

**Author's Note:**

> Dear all, plot bunnies like to hop and I let this one do it. This is another alternative universe and this time it is based on Moulin Rouge, the movie. I hope this work will give me the opportunity to experiment with formats and I hope that you will find it interesting as well. 
> 
> Note: this work will feature language notes mainly from Italian, French and Spanish. I might occasionally feature some other languages if I feel the plot calls it. Please bear in mind that none of the languages mentioned just now are my mother tongues so please do correct me if I happen to make a mistake in it. I really appreciate your help on this.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a work of FICTION! In no ways it reflects the people mentioned or the ideals of the author. Art for art's sake.

It is the first day of spring and the equinox has brought to the sky the rainbow that you always drew on my pages. The purple almost robs the other colors their brilliance but I still remember you liked red the best. I will always remember what you liked. A drop of perfume behind your ears so I would press my nose to your nape just a second longer, the ivory comb from an uncharted island in the south seas that you would make me use because you liked when I played with your hair, a kiss on your lowest rib when you took off whatever dress you had that night and you laid on my bed, on our bed, because your scent has not left it. And never will. I went there yesterday, in the same steps we used to when the bells of the church would give us their blessing, or when you chased the feral cat on our way home, and your lilies have finally bloomed. They are not crimson as you thought, but pale blue, almost white, like your lips when I first held you under the snow. If only I knew back then. Nothing has changed there and they are finally together. Yes, don’t worry, I gave them your smile too. Did you think I would forget it? Did you think I would ever forget you? I am sorry but that is the only wish I will never grant you.

I will never forget your name, my Yuzuru.

 

 

_One year ago_

 

The hammering of the platform heels of the petite and spherical woman in front of him is probably the most disturbing sound Javier has heard since he left the intercontinental train a few hours ago. For her low stature and unmatched weight, she walks quite steadily and navigates through the set of stairs like a mole in its underground maze with such a speed that the newly arrived man is breathless by the time he reaches a wooden door with two crossed swords and the number 271 in a rusted iron plate.

‘Here,’ the woman hands him a key, one that might as well been a cannon ball for how laden it is, ‘there is only one in the whole hostel so you will either climb your own window, good luck on that, or break the hinges and that would cost you a jumbo refurbishment fee and your ass in jail for a couple of nights, in case you lose it.’

‘I’ll take good care of it.’ Javier flashes his most polite smile, a grin from ear to ear that spelled everything but trust. He is almost bitten by the chameleon on his landlady’s shoulder, the reptile yawning with the most ominous shriek and he can swear that the spots on his scales are exactly of the same size as the wart just above the upper lip of its owner. The Spaniard diverts his gaze and he pulls apart the gold chain with a heart-shaped locket resting around his neck. There is a picture of a much younger and beautiful girl in the pendant and he removes it before handing in the necklace.

‘Is this enough for two months?’ He crumbles the picture in his grasp.

‘A month and half.’ She corrects him. ‘Your room is the only one with a bathtub in this floor. Kitchen is shared with everyone and at the end of the corridor. Laundry lines on the rooftop. And…’, she gestures for Javier to get closer, fearing that any passerby would hear them (even the chameleon was drained of all color and could easily be mistaken for a grey granite block), ‘… don’t ever cross to _hell_. You will not come out alive.’

The room was a rather small one with a double-sized bed, a modest carpet covering half the floor and a desk at the corner. He drops his suitcase carefully, taking out his typewriter and his collection of ink bottles and quills, setting them on the surface of the table. The air inside smells sterile and with traces of alcohol, perhaps a doctor was the previous tenant, and Javier opens the window, the rush of the winter gale almost hurting his lungs as he inhales.

The _Purgatory_ was known as a safe haven for artists and those alike as recommended by the drunk travel writers who claimed they had journeyed the entire globe in search for the saint grail of their inspiration. The Spaniard understands now why as he looks to the sight of the city in the horizon. On his right, the mansions of green gardens and fountains of milk and honey adorned the berm of the hills with their opulence; on his left, gaudy neon lights, a succession of brothels for all tastes and preferences, and clubs where transactions were made but never business deals. In the middle stood the hostel, no lifts to save the costs of exorbitant electricity nor lamps in the halls. Javier couldn’t help but notice all the posters of naked women and men by the entrance and the curious stares, from head to toes, as he walked to the fifth floor. There were rumors that a serial killer lived on the fourth one (and the victims buried on the pantry) and that the sixth story was cursed with a secret passage to another dimension.

A bunch of folk tales to scare children, he thinks, and the Spaniard lights a cigarette, the white stick providing him a little heat. The portrait of the young, shy girl that he had forgotten, falls from his open palm and Javier brings the tiny image to his lips for a last prayer as he sets it aflame. It takes less than a few seconds for the face to turn into ashes and he releases the photo out to the world before it burns his fingers.

‘Hey you!’ A voice from below yells at him. ‘Yes, you!’ He gives a tentative look at the balcony and the angered man that stands with his finger pointed. ‘You fucking _salaud_ (bastard)! Do I look like a trash can to you?’

‘I’m sorry.’ Javier puts out his cigarette, choking at the smoke. ‘I thought no one was down there.’

‘Are you blind!?’ There is a moment of silence before the stranger smirks as if they knew each other. ‘Oh _you_! Wait for me. Don’t you dare to move!’ And he disappears to his own quarters in a running pace.

Javier has no idea what just happened, if the brown-haired neighbor is coming to turn him into ground meat, but he is too late to close the door of his room when two other residents barge in, the older of the duo particularly enthusiastic.

‘ _Il nuovo ragazzo!_ ’ (The new boy!)

‘What–’, the Spaniard loses balance and tumbles back as a pair of arms encircle him in a crushing hug.

‘Handsome, _bellissimo_! Much better than those spectacles and corn face.’ The man slides his hands on Javier’s hazelnut curls, suave as if washed in almond oil, and he brings their lips together, their mouths sealed in a kiss of inquisitive curiosity. ‘Deliciously soft but bland. Too bland. I need _il fuoco_! (the fire!)’. He slumps to the floor, pretending to have been just rejected and faking tears that presumably run down his shaved cheeks.

‘Don’t mind Massimo.’ A handshake this time. ‘You’ll get used to his whims soon. Call me Raya.’

‘Javier.’ He tightens the grip on the salutation, still stupefied at the warm welcome. ‘Pleasure.’

‘No, no, no. The pleasure is all mine.’ The Italian sits by the bed, throwing the middle finger to the one called Raya. ‘Visiting relatives? Or hunting for a night of endless thrill?’

‘I’m looking for a job.’ He points at the letter keys of his machine. ‘I’m a writer.’

‘ _Uno scrittore!_ (A writer!)’ Massimo’s frenzied exclamations are annoying but he can’t hide his joyful energy at that revelation. ‘Aren’t you lucky, Raya?’

‘You bet he is.’ The tenant from the apartment downstairs, Patrick, finally arrives, a drop of sweat drifting from his forehead. He walks past half of the quartet and he pulls Javier’s wrist to him, placing the soot from the burnt picture on his palm. ‘Javier Fernández, here, in the Purgatory! We might finally have a chance.’

‘Wait,’ Raya magically pulls a folded newspaper page from the inner pocket of his waistcoat. ‘The man who wrote _The Hardening of the Holy Rod_?’

The sting of anxiety assaults Javier and he retrieves his hand, the dust sinking to the floor as he recoils further in his jittery posture. ‘That was a mistake.’

‘A mistake?’ Patrick laughs uncontrollably, followed by the other two men. He pats the Spaniard’s shoulder, guiding him to sit with them in a hemicycle. ‘Sex is never wrong, oh poet of sacred lust.’ He throws a titanium case to Massimo, who plucks a rice paper sheet and nimbly rolls a club.

‘To friendship.’

The Italian is the first one to take a drag and he passes the improvised cigarette around, the joined quietude of the four of them there, seated by the gelid breeze, providing the much needed relief and solace for Javier. When the reefer reaches him, he hesitates but Patrick reassures him it’s not drugged. It is high quality tobacco, the best he has ever tried, the pure nicotine shooting up to his brain, and he wonders how much that must have cost.

‘Patrick smuggles anything you want, cigarettes, a bottle of rum from the last century, Gallais chocolates, Rembrandt. With the proper price, of course.’

‘Mind you tongue, Raya, if you want to keep it. I’m a man of honor.’

‘We are all men of honor, especially when our pants are down.’ Massimo grabs his crotch, delineating the length of his manhood. ‘But tell us Javier, what brought you here to this sewer?’

‘The revolution.’ He stares at the grain pattern of the wooden flooring. ‘I couldn’t live anymore with the suffocating pentameter and the shackles of the _terza rima_. I want the beauty, the freedom and the truth.’

The beauty of the imperfect, contemporary unknown; the freedom of the ephemeral spirit, gone as it is born; the truth of the desires of one’s occult instincts.

‘And love?’ Patrick points at the ash stained palm. ‘Is it not worth your dedication?’

The Spaniard takes a deep breath, shaking his head. ‘I won’t chase something that has already left me.’

‘I love you,’ Raya imitates a falsetto tone in a meek timbre, ‘why don’t you love me? But I adore you. Then why do you have her too? My love is too large for one person only, my cherry. You don’t love me then! I do, pumpkin of my eye.’ It is a one-man theater that finishes with an imaginary stab on his heart. ‘I love them all when they want me between their legs. Better than any wedlock. There used to live a Russian boy on the seventh floor.’

‘Not that story again.’

The actor continues, ignoring the irked complaint. ‘He was a such a refined young man with hair that even made unicorns envy him. One day he met this lady who only walked with knife shoes and they married as soon as she was eighteen. The next month…’ Raya’s dry sobs earn him a soothing fondle on the thigh by Massimo and he wipes the non-existent tears with an equally fictitious handkerchief, too rattled to wrap up that fairy tale.

‘If love has fled you Javier, are you going to let sex also vanish from your virile knight?’

A slight rosy complexion blossoms on the writer’s earlobes, extending to his neck like an itching rash. ‘Sex is just two bodies in contact, a lump of flesh entering another, in and out, until that pent-up stress releases all over and there is nothing else that keeps you awake anymore.’

‘Cynical, aren’t we?’ Patrick smirks, his finger tracing Javier’s jaw and chin, left to right, before resting it on his lower lip. ‘Only a choreography of bodies?’ He winks at the other two men as he holds the distracted Spaniard by the biceps, restricting his movements.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Sanity check.’

He tries to struggle but just as quick as the anguished grimace from the comatose Russian boy fable deserted Raya, the actor plunges his hand into Javier’s pants, pulling down the zipper and fondling the warm package underneath his briefs. A hiss escapes the writer’s mouth as he is groped and teased through the fabric, a jolt that feels slightly too good immediately whisking to the tip of his sex.

‘How many does he have?’ Patrick’s question is a whisper in their breaching intimacy.

‘Two.’ Raya squeezes his balls tenderly, nodding with approval. ‘Maybe three.’

‘What–’

‘Nothing to worry about. The landlady has one herself. A tiny one.’

The room explodes into delirious laughter and Javier frees himself from the imprisoning grip, trashing and elbowing the path to liberty. He hastily fixes his pants and the hems of his shirt caught in the inspection, trying his best to heap the bewildered, offended stance as he presses his lips together to suppress a giggle himself.

‘Sorry, sorry.’ Patrick massages his stomach with the advent of a cramp that twist his guts. ‘You looked so dead serious with your philosophy, dear poet.’ He points to the window, to the sinful edge of the town. ‘You will change your mind very soon, Javier. You will understand it the moment you step into the Red District.’

‘A world where your deepest fears come true.’ Massimo stands and walks around the room, flailing his arms in the desperate pursuit for an apparition that is not there but he kisses the air and he lets the freezing wind envelop him in a flirtatious game of hide and seek, touch and be touched. ‘His black hair on your skin will make you crawl to his feet and the dark crystals of his irises…’ he cries of pain and pleasure, ‘they will enslave you with just a glance. Just one, _Javierito_ , and you will pledge your loyalty forever just for one second of his devotion. There is no one in this world that you will want more and he will belong to everyone but you.’

‘Who?’ Javier smirks at the weird dance and exaggerated infatuation of his neighbor. Or so he thinks.

‘ _La prima donna del mio cuore!_ ’ (The fair lady of my heart!) Massimo marches in direction of the Spaniard, his steps light but firm and he places a foot on his crotch, applying the most modest pressure. ‘He will never be yours and you will never ever touch him because…’, Raya materializes behind the Italian performer, pulling him back and lifting him in a pirouette, and he flutters his hands when the other man lands, imitating a pair of wings, ‘… _il angelo della morte_ (the angel of death) will protect him forever and curse you for eternity.’

Patrick joins the two of them, kneeling next to the Italian, and he draws an imaginary sword, feigning a knighthood ceremony, the blade tapping on his shoulders with him reciting a code of honor, which includes an oath to never betray sincere friendship even at the sight of laced panties and a vow to never forsake art even in a coffin. He offers the same sword to Javier. ‘This where you will join us.’

‘Me?’

‘You ask too many questions, poet of the lost souls.’ The Spaniard is hurled to his feet and given a feathered quill from a swan. ‘You are our trump card to finally enter the den of the beast.’

‘Is it…’, Javier swallows dry, ‘… dangerous?’

All three tenants nod in synchrony.

‘Very.’

‘Deadly.’

‘And if you survive,’ a raven perches on the railing of the window frame, singing its doomed sentence, ‘ _his_ lips will bring you immortality.’

The heart of the writer suddenly beats with brisk excitement, his pulse hopping from bone to bone, and his fingers shiver with the same feverish fanaticism of the trio. ‘What do you need?’

Their eyes glow with a renewed cyclone of mischievous childishness but also of a naïve mirth.

‘A plot.’

‘Once upon a time, in the meadows of the far, far pole…’

‘There lived a shepherd with spotted goats like cows who travelled up and down the mountains every day.’

‘And a maiden born from the cascade in the core of the forest.’

‘Naked.’

‘Very naked.’

‘This is a proper show, not a strip number.’

‘Fine, she wears the wool of the goats.’

‘She has to weave them first.’

‘Details later, details.’

‘So there is this shepherd who sleeps in the pastures.’

‘Who wants to watch a show with the protagonist sleeping?’

‘Art imitates life, my friend.’

‘Why don’t we…’, the discussion reaches no consensus and Javier raises his voice, drawing all the attention and frightening the crow, ‘… why don’t we change it to a gypsy king?’

‘A king?’ Massimo grants a crown of oxygen to Raya’s head and a scepter of the same immaterial thinness.

‘Yes, a king who disguises himself as a peasant so he can leave the castle and hunt for the myth of the maiden of the water. He wants to kill her because there is a prophecy that the fairest spirit will usurp his title and he is driven by the fear of…’

‘Of?’ The three men sit in front of him like puppies waiting to be fed their prized drumstick.

Javier hesitates, saliva drying under his tongue and crystalizing splinters on his palate. ‘Of not being loved.’

‘But she loves him!’ Massimo kisses Raya passionately, immersing in both main roles, the one willing to give _l’amore_ and the one who bathes in the affection. ‘The maiden sees his reflection on the river and she longs for the flesh!’ The actor escapes on time from another onslaught of unsolicited rapture.

‘We could paint a sky of candles on stage.’

‘And pour a stream of diamonds with mines of sapphires on the banks.’

‘The hills are alive with the sound of…’

‘… of their bodies entangled,’ Javier finishes the lyrics, his hands bracing his own silhouette in a timid poise, ‘two as one, the cries of yearning in the most beautiful incantation of carnality.’

The quartet looks around, at the ceiling, at the string of sparrows on the power lines outside, at each other, the momentarily silence filling the Spaniard’s chest with unease and the same dread when he was disowned. It is Patrick the one who claps the awe away from their faces, each slap of palm to palm resonating with pride and intoxicating hysteria.

‘This is it. We are finally going there. Tonight, it must be tonight!’

‘ _Sì, sì, stasera!_ (yes, yes, tonight!)’, the Italian trips over his own undone shoelaces but he doesn’t care and he wriggles his elbows and buttocks to the door, tugging Raya with him. ‘A shower, _mio tesoro_ (my treasure), you need a shower.’

‘Wait,’ Javier catches Patrick’s arm before his neighbor flees too, ‘where are we going?’

‘Javier fucking Fernández,’ he shakes the writer’s shoulders with such a vigor he might have dislocated them, ‘you are going to _Saudade_.’

‘ _Saudade?_ ’ A name that flows from his lips as if it had never left them.

‘ _Oui, enfant de la révolution_ (yes, child of the revolution)’, he gives Javier a final pat on the cheeks, ‘wear your best suit and the promise of sex on your tongue, my friend, because when you see _him_ tonight,’ he whispers to his ears, a warning threaded with hints of provocation, ‘even you will beg for _his_ love.’


	2. The Quartet of the Revolution (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of soaps that do not wash away memories, of a swan that becomes human and clumsy dances.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear all, it never rains but it pours is definitely the most appropriate idiom for me now. I hope you will enjoy this chapter and pardon again my abuse on foreign languages.
> 
> Disclaimer: this is a work of FICTION. Art for art's sake.

The soap bar at the corner of the shower probably cleanses even the most difficult mildew stains as he rubs the pungent chemical block onto his skin. The ink blots under his nails, the diluent burnt marks on the back of his hands, perhaps whitening of his blood as well, but not the memories.

_I am sorry Javier. You make me happy. Too happy. And I cannot stand that._

He slips in the ceramic bathtub, immersing completely in the foam and the steam. The water covers his ears and his eyes, letting nothing to be heard and nothing to be seen. His mouth too, pressed shut so he won’t choke, Javier dives into the oblivion of his emotions, into the existential quietude he learned from the philosophical brothers and sisters of bastard mothers and alienated fathers. The silence is comforting with its baneful promises, pledges of painless journeys beyond space and conquests of time, but survival instincts are sore spoilers and Javier is jolted to the surface with the traitorous buoyancy. He almost falls when he stands up, his legs shaking of the leftover adrenaline and the warm vapor fogging his mind.

_He makes me cry, he makes me angry, he makes me feel things I never thought it was possible. I’m so sorry, Javier. Please forgive me._

The Spaniard quickly fixes the white collar of his shirt on the mirror over the strap of the bowtie, as he parts his hazelnut locks to one side, and then the other, until the curled tips matched the stubble on his chin, handsome and with a classical charm to his features.

_I am going with him. There is no future here, neither for you nor for me._

When he leaves the bathroom, cheeks flushed with a tint of rose and glassy almond irises from the residual heat, Patrick is already seated by his desk, playing with the keys of his typewriter, his two index fingers hovering over the letters of his name.

‘How did you get in?’ He ties the laces of his worn leather shoes, still a thin layer of luster on them though.

‘I climbed from my balcony.’ Patrick points at the window. ‘That was a tough acrobatic routine.’

Javier doesn’t know what he finds more annoying, the mocking laughter of the older man as he peeks from the open frame to the floor below or his own naïve stupidity for believing in that lie and being led by it.

‘Here,’ the uninvited guest helps him to put on his coat, adjusting the folds of the lapels, and he slides a hard object together with the handkerchief on the breast pocket, ‘ _ta clé, écrivain de péchés_ (your key, writer of sins). Keep it well if you don’t want to lose it.’

‘Isn’t it more thrilling?’ He thanks for the help, offering his best smirk. ‘To snatch things away the more they are hidden?’

‘ _Touché_.’

The two men share a pat on their backs, the acknowledgement of a blossoming friendship and also a warning of not overstepping territories, which Patrick promptly dismisses as he frowns and reproduces a tiny bottle from his own inner pocket. He dips his fingers in the brownish liquid, pressing the digit to Javier’s neck, up his Adam’s apple and resting just below his jaws. The scent of alcohol and lime is piquantly strong and whether it is a furtive _eau de cologne_ or just a drop of a tangy spirit, he cares not.

‘A repellent for the prudish virtues and decency.’ The downstairs tenant does the same to himself as well as taking a sip from the vial. ‘It is a world of immorality and the realm of the damnable that we are going to offer ourselves, my friend. We will walk with cruelty on our left while our inner masochist will lavish our right. And Javier…’, He looks directly at the Spaniard’s eyes, his gaze never wavering. ‘… there is nothing better than this. Nothing.’

‘Is this about that beauty in _Saudade_?’ Javier closes the door of his room slightly more vigorous than he expected, the number plate almost falling to the floor.

Patrick shakes his head. He pretends to steal the key again but the younger man dodges him on time. ‘We are all creatures of the underworld. You, I, they,’ he points to Raya and Massimo, the latter already waving hysterically in their direction, ‘we are all starved for love. The kind that makes you want to die just for one night of true pleasure.’

The streets of the Red District are the deltas of the sewers from Heaven, brothels for schools and liquor stores for apothecaries to cure all ailments. Beggars curse in ancient tongues and chant with their tin mugs while young boys are praying with their filled mouths and former ladies demand a coin for a massage with their breasts. They are outcasts from the puritan rule, vagabonds of the plundered land with the capitalists’ soot vomiting factories. They paint the dilapidated walls of their barns with the creeds of the revolution and they brand their rebellion with the colors of sex.

The azure incandescent spotlights in _Saudade_ ’s entrance contrast massively with the rainbow euphoria inside the cabaret. The golden banners drape from over the railings of the mezzanine balconies down to the top hats of the gentlemen in the club. The town’s mayor, magnates of tea plantations and heirs of royal titles all splurge their wallets (and underwear) in the line of Can-Can dancers, their legs almost kicking the most curious patrons while their heels abduct their glasses and the pocket watches.

‘Welcome to the _paradiso_!’

Javier has barely time to register Massimo’s words when he is pulled away by a passing, already inebriated, grey-haired elder, who praises his rather muscular chest. It is a succession of hands and fingers all over him, fondling his cheeks and groping his buttocks, twirls at the center of the salon and flying kisses that he evades most of the time.

‘Do not fight the monster in you! Let the animal procreate in the bosoms of the _tightest_ fire!’

The man on the stage waves his baton not to coordinate the orchestra but the whole crew at _Saudade_ , every single sway of the maestro rejuvenating a dying beat of the forever changing jukebox and each of his overly dramatic shouts coaxing more and more notes clipped on the garter belts of his little nymphs. The haze of blatant sexuality shrouds Javier’s thoughts in the mist of dizzying _joie de vivre_ , igniting in his gut the drive to hunt for a body, any body, to meet his.

‘Come here Romeo,’ he hadn’t noticed he was glued to the same spot, staring at the commotion of the caged mermen, until Raya catches his wrist and drags him to the table in the corner where the rest of the quartet is drawing an improvised plan on a coaster, ‘Brian is not worth your seduction skills.’

‘We promised you the beauty, Javier.’

‘Not the beast.’

They all laugh as the writer shakes his head, negating his supposed interest in elderly charms. ‘What are we–’.

The illumination in the main hall of the cabaret fades as the loud and feverish tunes recede to complete silence. The anticipation can almost be tasted in the air and Javier breathes of the collective impatience hammering on his temples. It is only one voice in the beginning, the baritone hail of the commander on stage but soon every presence in the closed space is chanting the same name with the utmost devotion.

_Yuzuru._

‘ _Chiamalo_ (call him), _chiamalo ora_ (call him now), _Javierito_!’ Massimo has joined the choir of fervent believers. ‘Call him as intense as you can. Invoke him in the spell of your _amore_ because if he hears you, he will grant you a wish you will never forget.’

A lump forms in Javier’s throat and his vocal chords are tied into a knot that he cannot solve. He closes his eyes for brief seconds, picturing every stroke of the letters of his name and every syllable of its lyrical grace.

Yuzuru.

He calls him in the inner echo of his mind.

Yuzuru. Yuzuru. Yuzuru.

Like a string of runes that rhyme with anything with the perfection embed in it.

Yuzuru.

‘Yuzuru.’

A white feather falls on his nose, grains of silver dust on the bow of his lips, and he regains his sight at the swan perched on the trapeze above him, the smile on the courtesan’s face only for him.

‘ _Guarda che lago che luna c'è_ (Look what a lake, what a moon there is)

 _Le stelle in cielo brillano per noi_.’ (The stars in the sky shine for us)

The large pair of wings travel in circles, large then smaller ones, and the tail of even longer peacock like plumage brushes just the tip of their hair. All the audience is mesmerized and they dare not to touch an inch of the magic touch befallen on their heads.

‘ _In questa notte stregata_ (In this bewitched night)

 _La mia serenata canterò per te_ ’. (My serenade, I will sing it for you)

The young man sings in a feeble tone, almost a whisper, directly to his ears. Javier follows the path where he flies, the prism crystals searing a maze of stars wherever he goes. It rains argent glitter from his hands, the same ones that adorn his chest, a glass swan becoming human. Svelte arms, fragile, and hands that touch his own face for the first time, on the moaning lips and the hair of black silk of the night. His legs, pale and naked, gaining strength for the first time and feet morphed from talons, they dangle on the trapeze, back and forth, tentative tiptoes on the air, until a cold shudder runs through his slender waist.

The same shiver that condenses straight to Javier’s groin.

‘ _Quanto ti amo tu non lo sai_ (How much I love you, you don’t know)

 _Nei miei pensieri tu sola sei_ ’. (In my thoughts, you are alone)

Yuzuru releases his hands from the swing and he submits them to the lured and enticed men. All of them raise theirs for a second to savor the divinity, Javier too, instinctively offering his palms as if he might grasp the infinite that moment.

‘ _Love me._ ’

The young swan loses balance and he falls from the sky, the sharp cries of the audience resonating in horror and fear. It is thunder from the drums and the pizzicato of the bass when the angel of death lifts Yuzuru in his embrace. He holds him against his own glistening, exposed chest, only a large diamond choker tied at his neck, a leash with a pendant, and his own black wings and tights contrasting with the virginal silhouette of his new prey. They are both standing at the center stage, the young man’s back to those who came to see him.

They call him the _sky_ , Javier hears, a sky jealous for the beauty of the bird that metamorphoses into a human just to taunt him.

The fallen angel plucks the white feathers one by one, each quill eliciting a hiss from Yuzuru, not of pain but of escalating pleasure on the mortal kingdom. It is his nape that is first unprotected, then the shoulder blades protruding through the almost transparent white satin that hugs every line of his back, his spine and his vertebrae. He shakes his head, a feigning timid plea but the angel strips him of his dress, his round and perky bottom trembling at a reverberating slap from _Tian_.

Javier wonders if the swan would cry for him too if he caressed that same softness, just like how the laced string runs between the rift of the plump peach.

Yuzuru kneels, finally obeying his master, and yet he drags his nails through the defined torso, scratching the muscles of the navel with his claws. He brings his face to the crotch, a forged hesitancy as he runs his tongue leisurely along the gingerly clothed length of the angel’s manhood, kissing the tip with mocking chastity.

Would he die if he was kissed the same way, _there_?

Tian rips apart the choker, a brutish, carnal groan torn from his sanity, and the diamonds pour over Yuzuru’s dark locks down his bowing posture, the myriad of jewels hoarding at his ankles. The angel chooses the greatest one, the tear-shaped pedant and he lays it gently on the swan’s already open mouth, on the tip of his flesh, pressing on the wet lips. It all becomes a starless night again as Tian leans forward to devour his game, his dark wings enveloping both their figures.

Just as swiftly came the apparition of sin that he has now returned to the celestial heavens, sparing nothing and no one on his ethereal stroll of temptation. Brian consoles the broken sobs of the smitten and faithful souls, raising their bids for the auction of a glimpse of the swan again, the contained frenzy slowly creeping back to _Saudade_.

There is nothing that Javier can give, his pockets empty except for a brass key, but his pants are full and he shifts uncomfortably in his seat, crossing his legs to hide the bulge that was gaining life. He almost jumps from the static electricity that painfully jolts him when Patrick purposely nudges him with an elbow on his ribs, a black feather falling from the buckle of his belt.

‘Still playing the immunity card, _salaud_ (bastard)? And here I thought I would see how _blanc_ (white) your ribbons are.’ The older man mimics the ascending motion of a blasting firework flower right on top of his crotch.

‘Shut up.’

‘Repressing desires is dangerous, my friend.’ He points at Massimo who is almost hyperventilating. ‘Learn from him.’

The heaving cough from the Italian’s chest is of agony of his own release painted on the damp stain on the fabric over his sex. There are a few tears on his unfocused, dilated pupils, the saline dollops caught by Raya’s tongue on his eyelids, as he licks them thoroughly in an aftercare favor. It frightens Javier the intensity of the climax brought ashore just by watching Yuzuru and his elysian executioner.

It almost makes him jealous for not knowing the true taste of distilled lust.

‘Who is…’, the Spaniard takes a deep breath, tapping his fingers on the surface of the table to distract his own less puritan fancy, ‘… who is Yuzuru?’

‘The highest courtesan of this circus.’ Raya wipes one last tear, he seemingly the most composed of the quartet. ‘We are the creatures that dwell in the mud and he our tamer. We surrender everything to _la emperatriz_ (the empress) of the Red District.’

‘You!’ Massimo leaps from where he is sitting, landing on his unofficial servant’s lap, and he grabs Javier’s bicep with an excruciating tenure of his quavering nails, his pulse dictating the Spaniard’s one as well. ‘ _Mio dolce fiore_ (my sweet flower). Did you see him? Did you see HIM?’ Javier nods in the detention, expecting the whip on his ribs if Massimo had one. ‘ _Mio cuore_! (My heart!) _Sono malato, lo so_ (I’m sick, I know). I will perish in the stream of the hanged souls by dusk, in the pool of the criminals that eat children by dawn. _Salvami_ (save me), Javier. Save me from this unjust punishment that destiny has played on this _pagliaccio_ (clown).’ The desperate wails continue until he pulls the poet by the collars. ‘You have to possess him tonight!’

‘What?!’

‘Carry him in your Herculean muscles, seize the feathers with your burning vigor! He shall be the star of our production, the maiden of your bold ministrations who will drink from your fountain. _Ti prego, il mio cioccolatino_ (Please, my chocolate).’

‘How can I even get close to him?’

‘Fear not, _bambino_ (child). It has been taken care of.’ Massimo kisses both his cheeks as if giving his parting blessings. ‘The butterfly suite is yours and he too. Yuzuru and you. Alone. Not a fly or a mosquito to interfere with your iambic intercourse.’

‘Yes,’ Raya finally breaks free from his role of human cushion and he pats his numb and bruised legs, ‘your muse has great expectations about you.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘ _Nada_ (nothing).’ The scheming duo tilts their heads in unison from one side to the other. ‘Massimo said you were a very famous writer. The one who wrote stanzas with ink that others bled in their sleep.’

‘Your name from now on is Cervantes.’

‘Cervantes? He is dead for almost half a century!’

‘Is he?’ Patrick stands up, tailoring the hems of this coat. ‘You better nurture your trochaic wit soon. Very soon.’

Javier has no time to question why when the metamorphosed swan stealthily walks past the bowing posture of the Canadian, demanding a kiss from _his highness_ , and he sits on their table, his bare feet lounging on the Spaniard joined knees. He skips a breath as the crystals chart a streamer from Yuzuru’s collarbones to his sternum in a straight line down to his pelvis. The satin and silk hides almost nothing of his pale complexion, of moon dew in the nightfall of his disheveled hair.

‘Massimo, my favorite liar of truths,’ his glossy pomegranate lips quirk delicately as he speaks, ‘is this the _unlucky_ one?’

‘ _Sì_!’ The Italian is at the verge of fainting from the proximity with the object of his dreams.

‘I am sorry.’ The smirk on Yuzuru’s mouth is everything but apologetic and he brings a thumb to his crimson lips, kissing it before placing the smeared mark on Javier’s chin. ‘Did I make you wait for too long?’

‘No.’ It’s only a monosyllable but he already chokes on the negation, coughing very slightly. His whole face burns from the curtailed contact and the flames seem to be gravity’s friendliest ally, descending back to his dormant groin. ‘No. This is a mistake.’

‘A mistake?’, The black-haired performer laughs with the most unrestrained astonishment and marvel. ‘A mistake, your majesty?’, He pries open Javier’s legs, widening his own simultaneously, a glance of the entrée for the feast he bargains to serve. The vestal laced panties are even more fragile than the feathers on his back, a crochet string barely holding his manhood and the pressure from the pink tip. ‘Tell me, my majesty, how wrong is _this_?’

There is no answer, only a symphony of gasps, and Yuzuru hurls them both to the dance floor, his annoyed pout of rejection more elegant than the fake smile. The Spaniard tries to escape the commotion of psychotic gaits and the rabid cabaret jazz but the swan locks their hands on his own willowy waist, dictating a pace that Javier can follow, still clumsy and gawkish though.

‘I’m sorry.’ Yuzuru susurrates in his ears, the erratic puffs of his breathing caressing his patron’s nape. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you.’

‘No.’ Javier staggers at the promenade meter, his feet lumpish and not heeding to the tango. ‘I… I don’t know what to do.’

‘Just let your body talk.’

Amidst the crowd of intoxicated living corpses and muddled sponsors of lascivious pursuits, Javier feels that they are the only ones in that page of the universe. It is sluggishly slow the sway of their hips, the subtle bubbles of vanilla that he inhales when Yuzuru nudges closer, until the distance between them was filled with the sweet sheepish aroma of innocence, making him almost lose balance in the haze of that aphrodisiac. He hisses when the courtesan sinks his teeth on his shoulders as he steps on him in his scarce coordination.

‘You are really bad at this.’ They reach the suspended trapeze and the swan returns to the lake he was never meant to leave. The rain of silver dust commences again as he is lifted higher and higher. ‘I hope you are better in bed, my lord.’

The last verses of the serenade scatters through the club, the promise of a new meeting on their unspoken lips and the sentence of goodbye nullified by the lingering fluttering on their pulses.

‘ _Ti cercherò tra la gente_ (I will search for you among the people)

 _Quanto ti amo, ora_ – (How much I love you, now–)’

The swan’s voice fades abruptly as his sharp falsetto cry pierces through the bricks of the walls. The frail body wavers in the strapped bar, hands bracing, scratching and clutching the throat for air. His obscured eyes and the limp silhouette falling from the fatal height is the last thing Javier sees before the maestro orders for the curtains of darkness to close on them.

‘Yuzuru!’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song used in this chapter is Notte Stellata in case you didn't recognize it.

**Author's Note:**

> 'Saudade' is a Portuguese word that, in my honest opinion, has no proper translation in English (yes, I'm an old school linguist. Shoot me). The closest would be the feeling of 'missing' someone or something, a longing feeling of nostalgia. --> I just stole this from my Code series.


End file.
